Instead of limiting the registration to 5 preformed teams, we've decided to open the registration to all individuals. As this will be an atypical bike polo event, in terms of game duration and style of play, we want to give anyone who is interested an opportunity to be selected to a team.

We think this will allow for:

1) excellent competition.
2) parity among teams.
3) the opportunity for anyone who wants to attend and play to get a chance to be selected.
5) unique combinations of players.
6) individuals to participate without having to gather a hometown crew.
7) memories that will last a lifetime.

Here are the guidelines:

1) Anyone can declare themselves eligible for the draft. There won't be a need to limit the draft pool size, as everyone will have an equal chance to get drafted.
Registration will open February 15th and close Saturday February 27th at 5pm. The draft will begin Sunday February 28th at Noon EST. In order to play in this tournament, you must be registered for the draft. If you do not participate in the draft, you cannot be added to a roster at a later date.

2) We would like the captains of the 5 teams to be representative of the various North American regions. Adam will request a captain be nominated by their regional peers from the following regions before the registration is closed. West Coast, Canada*, Southeast/central, Midwest. *i realize Canada is massive. We'd like one rep (Calgary, E.Van, Ottawa, whatever) from Canada is all we're saying. Ideally, these individuals are solid, team minded players who have a good knowledge of the talent pool. Obviously, these captains are encouraged to draft players from all regions to create as diverse a lineup as possible.

3) There will likely be an 11 round draft, with each captain drafting one player per round. The draft order will be randomly selected, and publicly monitored to insure its randomness. Selection order will go 1,2,3,4,5,5,4,3,2,1,1,2,3,4,5 etc. The draft length will be confirmed once we have a look at the amount of people who declare themselves eligible.

4) At the end of the draft, each team will have 12 players (1 captain, 11 selections). From the end of the draft on February 28th until 5pm Sunday March 14th, captains are permitted to negotiate trades with other captains, if they would like to adjust their lineup.

Trade rules are as follows:
1) Both captains must confirm the trade with organizers.
2) Players will have no part in the discussion of the trade. Negotiations will take place between the captains.
3) Once a player is traded and confirmation has been received by the organizers, the trade is final. The player will then be informed and the roster changed.
4) As of 5 pm Sunday March 14th, a final roster must be submitted to the organizers. This player list is final and only players on this final confirmed list will be allowed to play.
5) If a scheduling conflict occurs, and a confirmed player is unable to attend at the last minute, only an undrafted player from the original registration pool can be added as a last minute roster addition. This addition must be confirmed with the organizers prior to the start of the tournament. If a confirmed player is unable to attend the tournament, and no addition to the roster is available or made, the team will play with less players.
6) Trades can involve multiple players and multiple teams. Again, trades involving multiple teams must be confirmed by all parties to the organizers and will be conducted through the captains, and not the players. Although you can trade 2 for 1, 2 for 3 etc. you will only have 10 players active for each match, and it's beneficial for all involved if your roster remains as close to 12 as possible.
7) There is no limit to the amount of trades a captain can make, or the amount of times some hot potato can be traded.

So, on March 14th, final rosters for the 5 teams will be posted, each with 12 players. Prior to each match, each captain will declare 10 of the 12 players active and eligible for that match. This active roster can and should change for each game. If a player or their bike becomes disabled during the match, one of the non-active players can be made immediately active. That disabled player can be active for the next match, but cannot resume play in that game if they have been replaced on the roster by a substitute.

The main idea of this draft model is to promote interesting combinations of players at the beginning of tournament season, and to make this tournament inclusive and available to anyone who would like an opportunity to be selected for participation in Adam's bizarre hybrid polo fantasy.

As i believe it to be now, I (Paul) and a few other NYers will be monitoring the draft. Adam will not be a part of that monitoring process as he will be one of the 5 captains making selections and trade in the draft.

Info on registration will follow soon. I hope you all are having a good new year.

where do we enter. im sure it said somewhere above, and i did see that the draft opens during the middle of feb, but can i register now? that is if i dont get selected as a captain. I would very much like to represent the midwest. how are we going to select captains? i know it said it above like every region gets to select a captain, but how do we do that?

we will provide all these details soon. we just wanted to alert people so they could check their schedules, and not stress about having to form teams. we'll provide registration details as soon as we iron it out. i'm glad you are interested!

and those are just the elite. missing a few but near compleate we also have sam jackson, max and jill, the madison newbies who slay, piere, tahn, bird, tucker, and truck. so many more.

and then theres

the bruiser from st louis
,
the slick fucks from MPLS
,and
the COMO kids

each of those clubs have players that go on the top list. i just dont know there names.

i understand you just got hurt ( ACL was it? ) and your probably afraid to get hurt again. thats fine. let adam and zach hide behind their farce of a reason.

good luck. the one good thing that may come of this is that you and i may be able to play on a line together. that would be sweet.

on another note me and jonny and atwell are coming out between the 12th and 18th. i want to ship mine and jonny's. do you guys have a good place we could UPS them to? also if NYC wants some of the MKE mallets we could bring them out with not shipping. you could probably get together an order over 100 dollars anyways but, if you just want a few to try out, let us know.

were not a side. its you and your coastist beliefs that cant see beyond sides. were in the middle. oh and from what i hear on this forum you havnt been doing a good job leading/ representing your region. i hardly believe in a few weeks you will be speaking for much of cascadia. but hey, you guys won second place like 3 times this last year huh?

plus ben is failing to recognize that pieter's team beat an incarnation of madison at ESPI's plus killed us twice with martin at cog and then eliminated us from worlds. They had our number all year long.

The initial public announcement for this tourney alerted and excited most us enough to have already formed a team. Now...
Perhaps we could start a new thread only for interested parties and have them post something short to show their interest. I think that will allow you to have all the people for your draft. Not to tell you how to run things, just really would like to see the list of possible players.

Good idea, Matt. Kev created a profile for the tournament under the "Tourneys" tab. It seems easiest if we have people register there. So, people, please register for the draft by entering your info in that location.

i also don't see a need for this draft continue to be snobs and just let in who you want (a players). we tried to do this all ready with cog but we were to soft. you can do it NYC! or put in some OG rulehttp://www.mkebikepolo.com/wordpress/

again, the draft is open to anyone who would like a chance to be selected. Doug and I presented this draft idea to Adam as a way to make this more inclusive than the original idea of "invite".
peecocque, does this poo-butt attitude make Kremin a less-desirable draft pick? i can't tell.

i love the draft. But are players who enter the draft automatically going to get drafted and the first 50 players get drafted or are the players who enter the draft have the possibility of not getting drafted.

There is no first come, first served. Everyone can enter the draft, not everyone will be selected.
I'd like to adjust the draft length (meaning expand the teams) if there's a ton of interest, but we were thinking it's March, in New York, and it's kind of an atypical event, so we might not have the same level of interest as a larger tourney. So, the goal isn't to exclude people, but yes, if there's a way more people than draft slots, some people will not be selected.

i'd like to include everyone, but Menace is firm on 5 teams and 10 on the bench( with 12 total on the roster), and this is his brainchild, so i'm just trying to facilitate what he'd like. We could add more per team, but then you'd be scratching 5-6 for each game.

Kremin, i retract "poo-butt" from my previous statement and replace it with "combative", and have decided that your attitude and drug use do make you an ideal draft candidate.

hahahah i was serious man! the only real reason why i don't want the draft is because i want to slay with Midwestern brother's. And according to P bird im a drug addicted delinquent so if you look at it in terms of professional sports I'm a good pick. I retract the word continue from my previous statement.http://www.mkebikepolo.com/wordpress/

Man I love the idea of this but I don't think I have any chance of getting drafted unless the midwests captain is from Chicago or we get somoe more tri city play going on between now and then. Got no chance to show how good I am now!

I probably will go regardless and photograph the hell out of it. Haven't been taking pictures recently, polo needs my lens.

You'll see. Unless you drilled out your eyes because they were too heavy.

DRAFT REGISTRATION is now open in the Tourneys tab, under the heading for this Bench Minor tournament. Please register yourself for the draft there, and it'll make it easy for me to message everyone who has registered their interest. A bunch of you already have, thanks- p

Is there any way the draft can be a few weeks earlier so people can arrange their travel plans more than 3 weeks prior to the tourney. I don't see the need to wait too much longer to do the draft. Anyway, that's just my 2 cents. I'll be going to this thing either way.